We’re celebrating WYSO’s 60th birthday this year by listening to highlights from our historic audio collection.
In the early 1970s. WYSO had a growth spurt, adding staff and expanding the listening area. In 1973 came the first grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The money allowed us to buy programs from NPR for the first time. Also that year, the first on-air fundraiser was held. Listeners and businesses donated goods and services for an on-air auction, things like airplane rides and fresh baked bread. The fundraisers were called marathons. Regular programming was suspended for four straight days. Those who remember say the programming was wild and kinda wacky, and the few precious recordings we have confirm that things did get pretty squirrelly.
We’re celebrating WYSO’s 60th birthday this year by listening to highlights from our historic audio collection.
Julia Reichert got her start in media at WYSO with a radio program called The Single Girl – maybe the first feminist radio program in the United States. Today, she’s a celebrated and award-winning documentary filmmaker.
Today on Senior Voices, Dayton native Bob Penrod talks about serving in not one but two wars. At 89 years old, Bob remembers his Navy service and his short career with a popular Dayton radio station between wars. He shared his story with Dayton Metro Library volunteer interviewer, Barbara Gerla.
WYSO went on the air 60 years ago, and we’re listening back to audio from our collection.
On September 15, 1963, white supremacists bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Twenty-two people were injured, and four little girls were killed. This act of terror 55 years ago was a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement, and communities across the country held memorial services to honor the dead and galvanize their commitments to racial equality.
A week after the bombing, a somber march was held in Yellow Springs. WYSO reporter Bruce Havens was there. Former Antioch College professor Walter Anderson, along with villagers in Yellow Springs held a memorial service for the four children killed in the Birmingham church bombing.
Today on Senior Voices, we meet Belmont resident Margaret Frey. Now 71 years old, Margaret is long-time advocate for Dayton youth, working at Children’s Service Board or CSB, earning her doctorate in educational leadership at the University of Dayton, and serving as a school psychologist for the Dayton Public Schools for many years. She shared her story with Dayton Metro Library volunteer interviewer, Anna Omulo.
It’s been 60 years since WYSO went on the air and we’re listening back to some highlights from our rare audio collection. Forty years ago, it was the 1970s, and the WYSO news staff was busy doing stories about the decline in manufacturing across Ohio. Companies were moving from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. News director Mark Cohen talked to factory workers from northern Ohio.
You can record a birthday greeting for WYSO. Here's how:
Plan a message about 90 seconds long. You can start it like this:
Today on Senior Voices, we meet Reverend Daria Dillard Stone, who was raised on Broadway in West Dayton. She shared her early memories with Dayton Metro Library interviewer, Jennifer Hicks.
For many Ohio children living with HIV and AIDS, a special annual summer camp has meant a chance to escape, a time to get away, have fun and connect with other HIV-positive kids.
Camp Sunrise north of Columbus has been around since the mid-1990s. But, with advances in treatment over the last two decades, more people with the virus are living longer, healthier lives. And this summer the camp welcomed its last group of campers before closing its doors for good.
It’s been 60 years since WYSO went on the air and we’re listening back to some highlights from our rare audio collection.
When WYSO went on the air, most of what you heard was classical music. Programs like Music of Spain, High Fidelity Concert and a nightly show called Land of the Quiet Mind, where you could hear Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and those guys.
In the 1960s came more jazz, rock, folk, bluegrass and more live performances.
The week on Senior Voices, we meet 93 year-old Eleanor Kohlmann. Born Eleanor Dell in 1926 over in Yellow Springs, her family moved to Belmont when she was just a small child. Eleanor shared her memories with Dayton Metro Library interviewer, Brandon Ulman.
Transcript:
Brandon Ulman (BU): What’s your best memory from childhood?
